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Time to reject a dirty electricity standard

Posted Feb. 25, 2011 / Posted by: Ben Schreiber

Friends of the Earth joined more than 240 state, local, regional and national groups across the country urging Senate Majority Leader Reid to reject the idea of a so-called “clean electricity standard” that would call dirty energy sources including nuclear reactors, natural gas, coal and biomass clean.

President Obama called for such a standard in his State of the Union Address in January. See Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica’s response to the State of the Union here.

A dirty energy standard would jeopardize our ability to achieve the long term greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and its threats to our terrestrial and marine sources of food. Friends of the Earth is also concerned about this dirty electricity standard’s unfair impacts on low-income communities. Since toxic power facilities are disproportionately located in low income communities and communities of color, such a standard would also exacerbate health problems, such as asthma, in these communities across the country.